


What Once Was and Shall Never Be Again

by Krasimer



Series: And Now a Flower Grows 'Verse [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory drabbles, Dad W. D. Gaster, Dadster, Depressed Sans, Drabble Collection, Headcanon, Magic-Users, Papyrus Knows More Than He Lets On, Protective Papyrus, Sans - Papyrus - Gaster were three of the magic users to seal off the Underground, Smart Papyrus, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Young Papyrus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-05-22 09:25:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6073966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What they never told you about fairy tales is that, sometimes, you have to wake up.</p><p>(AKA The history of Skeletons and what their future holds. A look into their world from a change in the timeline.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon a Time...

This story begins a long time ago, back before humans had sealed off the world of monsters. 

It took seven wizards, mages really, to seal them off in the first place. Three of those did not make it through that final battle and the subsequent sealing. The three who passed away were a family, a father and his two sons. The eldest son, though physically weak and often sick, was the more magically strong of the two children. He was capable of tearing down the walls of reality, in much the same way that his father did.

The younger, instead of being quite as adept as his family in the art of magic, proved his prowess as a warrior. He fought battles at his brother's side, wielding a sword to defend him, for not all magic users know how to defend themselves. Many of them consider themselves disposable.

The warrior did not consider his mage-trained brother as such, and would often start a fight if he so much as suspected someone of thinking the word 'useless' about him.

Their father, a man of science and magic, an alchemist of sorts and a very strong magic user, was proud of the both of them. His eldest son, so very like him, and his youngest, so very much like their deceased mother. He treated them both well, loving them in the ways he could. He was a busy man, but a very kind one.

When the war came, the three of them headed for the front lines, offering as much help as they could. The eldest son, talented and brilliant, proposed sealing off the Underground if the monsters did not retreat. His father was wary of the suggestion at first, the mounting tensions making everything rise to a dangerous pitch.

It was only when the King of the Monsters appeared on the battlefields that he relented, his sons and him taking the idea to their own leader.

It was approved at once, those in charge desperate for some sort of ending to the war that had raged on for months. Four more magic users were gathered, the seven of them charged with sealing it off.

The father and his two sons, in defending their positions, were injured beyond any sort of medical attention that might have spared them. 

The three of them channeled their last living wills into the spell. 

They were buried side by side in the land they had died on. Even in death, the family would not be torn apart. They were left to rest, simple stones marking their graves, and the world moved on, forgetting about them entirely.

Until they woke from their deaths.


	2. Vanishing Into The Void

The humming of the machine beneath them shuddered, moments away from an explosive breakdown. The platform that they once stood on was shaking, mere seconds away from tilting into the heart of the CORE.

"Sans!" Gaster cried out, his grip on the railing as tight as he could make it. "Sans, where are you?" His eyes swept the room, the strange gravity-changing effects of the machine floating him off the floor. "Sans, please, are you alright?" his teeth chattered as he kept looking, not daring to move. What if the effects of the gravity change undid themselves while he was still in the air? 

"Dad!" 

There, from off to his left. "Sans, grab hold of something!"

His eldest son nodded as he came floating into view, his small hands clenched tightly around a cable from one of the machines, thankfully connected in tightly. "Dad, what's happening?" he called back to him, eyes pinned on the machine he was connected to. "The numbers are jumping randomly, this whole place is going to-"

"I know!" Gaster answered, feeling somewhat more secure now that he knew where his son was. "Sans, listen to me! We need to shut down some of it, I think there's not enough initial energy to keep the entire CORE going!"

"If we shut it down, the entire kingdom goes with it!" Sans dragged himself closer to the machine. 

"Better to shut down the power for a few more days than to lose the lives of all our people!" Gaster grinned at him, then looked below his feet to where the CORE lay. It gave a loud, gurgling sort of noise. "Sans..."

"...Dad?"

Strings of black matter stretched out towards Gaster, one of them wrapping around his leg. "Sans- SANS, RUN!" he reached out one hand, using his powers to stabilize his son, pushing him towards the door. 

"DAD!"

"RUN, SANS! iF YOU STAY, IT WILL ONLY GET YOU TOO!"

Sans stretched out an arm, his labcoat fluttering in the breeze of the anomaly being created around them. "Dad, wait, I can-" his eye started to glow, a faint blue shimmer surrounding his father as more of the CORE's strings wrapped around the skeleton. Where ever a string touched, his magic failed, leaving an increasing amount of empty spaces in the protection he tried to provide.

With a thundering belch and the angry shriek of grinding metal, the CORE dragged Gaster down.

Everything went still.

Blinking in the clearing room, Sans sat up, curling in on himself in an attempt to defend from-

What was he defending from?

The room was chaotic, a complete disarray, instruments littering the floor and a scrambled readout piled next to him. In one hand, he held the free end of a cable, the other stretched out like he had been reaching for something.

Reaching for what?

He shook his head, rubbing at the base of his skull. Something felt off, a welling-up of tears in his eye sockets for no good reason. 

Footsteps behind him made him jump a little, turning to face the new arrival. "Doctor Sans, are you alright? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, why?" he grinned at them, valiantly ignoring the tears running down his face. Slowly standing up, he dropped the cable, going over to the railing to look down into the CORE. "I think it might have hit a few rough spots, but it seems fine now."

The other scientist smiled back at him, a nervous look on her face. She was a junior scientist, not part of the Royal Team just yet, but she was a sweet kid. "If you're sure..."

"Yeah," he shrugged, adjusting his coat slightly and tucking his hands into the pockets. "Hey, if it's cool with you, I'm just gonna head home now, alright? Just...Leave things in here alone, I'll clean it up tomorrow. I just want to get some rest now, think I might have bumped my skull on something."

"O-oh, of course." she smiled again, stepping out of his way. "Have a good night, Doctor Sans."

"You too, Alphys." 

 

Home felt weird.

Papyrus was already asleep by the time he got there, and Sans was almost grateful. He shrugged himself out of his coat, settling it on the rack near the door. The room felt too big, unsheltered and empty, and he couldn't quite remember why there was a shed next to the house. 

Sitting on the couch felt wrong, felt too big, too-

Wrong.

There was an echo of a memory, something insistent and nagging at him, but he couldn't quite grab it and make it clear again. Turning his head to one side, he looked at the photo of himself and Papyrus that sat on the side table. It looked the same as it always had, plenty of room overhead to catch the view of the crystals growing in the ceiling of the caves.

It nagged at him again when he headed up to his room.

The empty space between his door and Papyrus's, the vastness of the empty wall. Maybe it needed a picture to hang in it so that it wouldn't feel so weird. Pap's room was, afterall, awfully big for such a little skeleton. Maybe he'd take the kid hunting for things to decorate with sometime soon, he'd probably enjoy that.

Sans pulled on his slippers, eyeing the wall carefully as he slipped into his room. Something had to be done about the empty space, anyways. 

Maybe Papyrus would enjoy painting it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will not be posting chunks of this story in the right chronological order. This comes after the first part, but a long time after. I will be explaining more as things go on.


	3. You're Not Alone The Way You Thought You Were

A sharp pain woke him, a feeling of not enough air dragging at him until he sat up.

Around him was a snowy field, nothing marring it, not even the tracks of a creature looking for food. Off to one side, there was a view of a small village, the faint gleam of firelight shimmering in the surrounding darkness. Above him was an open space, a view of the sky so far away that he almost couldn't see it.

A small noise, like the flutter of wings, turned his head in the other direction.

"Wel-" he coughed, bringing a hand to his face, staring at the exposed bones as he covered his mouth. "Shouldn't you be in a body?"

It was a small, glowing soul, floating around in nervous patterns.

He held out his hand to it, smiling when it curled around his fingers for a moment before scurrying away, zipping through the air to where there was another one. The second one wasn't floating, wasn't showing any sign of holding on as tightly as the first. Dropping to his knees next to the soul, he scooped it out of the snow, holding it to his chest. "No, no, do not-" his voice trailed off, catching in his throat as the soul glowed brighter in his hands.

The first flew in a tight circle around his head, nudging against the backs of his hands. 

"He will be alright, Sotiris, he just..." he frowned, the clatter of his teeth loud in the silence of the surrounding area. "...Sotiris?" he looked down at the weaker soul, blinking. "Sotiris and Paraskevas...Why are those- Are those names?" he readjusted himself in the snow, reaching out and drawing the active soul closer. "Aster, Sotiris and Paraskevas." he grinned, feeling the flow of magic in his hands, feeding into the two souls. "Those sound like warriors. Do you want me to tell you stories about warriors?"

The two souls glowed brighter, almost in time with the pulse of his magic inside of him. 

"Yes? Alright then, what about..." he thought for a moment, then started telling a story to them, keeping them as close as possible. 

Hours later found them still curled together with form given to the two souls. 

One of them was wrapped in a thick blanket, smaller than he had ever thought someone could possibly be. The other was a child-sized skeleton pressed against his side, curling into him whenever he shifted. 

"What shall we call ourselves?" he asked the child, keeping one arm curled protectively around the smaller skeleton. "I think I shall be Gaster."

The boy looked up at him, his eye sockets glowing a soft blue haze. "I..." he pulled back, looking at his hands, flexing them in front of his face. "...Sans?"

"Sans and Gaster." Gaster laughed, running a hand over San's head. "What of the littlest? Do you think 'Papyrus' suits him?"

"It's a mouthful," Sans curled tighter into the clothing he wore, much too large for his frame. "But I think it works." he pressed closer to the baby skeleton, careful fingers tracing over the crown of his skull. "He'll grow into it someday."

Gaster shuffled carefully, standing up slowly before reaching down and picking Sans up. Resting him on his hip, he nodded towards where he remembered seeing the small village. "We should see about shelter. You are my sons," he paused, then nodded. The words felt right. "And I will protect you as much as I can."

The three of them moved together, a small family in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This comes between the first two chapters and is the second in the timeline.
> 
> Discourse in the fandom over Gaster's name being W.D Aster or W.D Gaster or anything else leads to this. Aster is a Greek word, and so I chose names for the humans that Sans and Papyrus were in this story from Greek history. Paraskevas is Papyrus, and Sotiris is Sans. Aster is Gaster, because I felt it was a good name for him.
> 
> As for why they're children skellies when they were all three adult humans, this is why: Their souls were fading, using their magic to just barely hold on. Gaster, as their father and the most magically powerful of the three, was able to hold on to enough to make himself an adult skeleton. Sans was a little better off than his brother, but still not good. 
> 
> I hoped you enjoyed this chapter.


	4. Go Into The Dark

The crackling sounds of the CORE echoed through the room, pieces of equipment slamming against the walls as the people in the room tried to dodge them.

"Sir!" One of them called out, his hands grasping desperately for the sleeve of his coworker. "Gaster, sir, we can't get it to shut down!" he ducked out of the way as another piece of metal lodged into the wall where his head had been. The other scientist, the one he was holding onto, she-

 

The memory stills, the timeline fading out.

His hands draw back from it like it's made of acid against the tips of his fingers. The broken-edged jaggedness of his skull is full of the Void, his eyes hollow and almost empty. Stars sit in the empty space of his sockets, glimmering in the nothingness that surrounds him.

He remembers today.

They- 

His Team-

His Friends-

Had fallen into the CORE first.

Had been taken by the CORE first.

It had been blindly reaching for a source of power, not enough given to it initially. It had been Hungry, starving for more than it had been allowed. Those that hadn't been enough had been rejected.

He presumed that they were escapees of the Void, for he had never seen them in the darkness his world had become.

_'Dad!'_

The cry is a phantom, an echo of a memory, and he wishes he could answer it. There is fear in the voice, a moment of childlike uncertainty, terror of the unknown. His-

Son?

Sons?

Sans

Papyrus

His children. They were his, even if he didn't- wasn't able to -hold onto the reason it was so. They had been so small, tiny bones clasped against his.

Snow-

 

The cold made Sans shiver, his small boots leaving prints in the snow as he followed his dad. 

Gaster pulled him closer, a protective hand on his shoulder as he looked around. "Papyrus!" he called out, frowning when there was no answer. The strap of his glasses slid up slightly when his jacket hood caught it, forcing him to a stop for a moment. "Papyrus, where are you?"

"Dad!" came the small voice in answer.

Both Gaster and Sans turned to look, finally seeing the smallest of them running back towards them, a blue skinned monster girl following behind. Dropping to his knees, Gaster grabbed hold of him when he came close enough. "There you are!" he laughed in relief, holding him close. "You can't just go running off!"

"Yeah, bro, snow reason to-" Sans made a face, then shook his head as he joined in on the hug. "Aw, just c'mere, alright?"

Papyrus had the grace to look a little embarrassed, pulling back to turn to the monster he'd brought with him. "This is Undyne! She's so cool!"

The girl looked at both of them, yellow eyes wide as she grinned and held up a spear. "He helped me find this! I'd been looking for ages, and I couldn't figure out where it'd gone, so I was really happy he found it." she frowned, her face shifting into worry. "I guess we just lost track of time...I'm sorry."

"It's-"

 

"-Perfectly alright." he whispered into the black, eyes sockets dimming as he drew away from that memory as well. 

Papyrus had made his first friend that day, had been so happy when it was allowed, when she had announced that she'd come back to visit him often. Gaster had met her parents, though he couldn't remember them now.

Undyne was a sweet girl, if a little bit rough.

He approached another moment in time, allowing himself to sink into it and observe the world around him.

It was a laboratory.

It seemed familiar, and he almost smiled when he realized why. He had walked these halls before, had memorized every inch of them when he gotten a job that placed him within them at almost all hours. When Sans had grown enough, he had come to work for the King as well.

He nearly threw himself out of the timeline when something bumped into him.

Before him stood a child, rubbing at their eyes as they wandered through the smog-filled lab. Their steps were slow, their feet made heavy by sleep. A yawn made the choice to follow them easy, warding off any dangers that might approach the small human before they got to a place they could rest.

The beds made him hesitate, but when the child dropped down onto one, exhausted and unable to go any further, he drew the blankets over them. 

He sat there for a moment, unable to pull himself away as he watched their breathing change.

It was like watching Sans sleep for the first time, all over again. The quiet, nagging fear that something was going to go wrong, the worry that the child was not going to survive their first night. Sans was strong, if one went by how much magic he could wield, but sometimes magical strength did not carry over to anything else. 

This child was the same.

It felt almost like watching the soul of his son, body-less and unprotected, form into a shell again.

Off to one side, he could sense an anomaly approaching, wild-eyed and an awful grin on their face.

THIS IS NOT YOUR TIMELINE, THIS IS NOT YOUR MOMENT.

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN CORRUPT THEM AGAIN AND AGAIN, CHARA?

The spirit glanced at him, one hand coming to rest on the forehead of the sleeping child. It was obvious that they were connected, but he could not tell how it was so.

With one last brush of his hand over the edge of the blanket, Gaster slipped back out of the timeline, ignoring the answering grin of the maniacal child staring after him.

 

The Void felt like relief.  
DARK AND SAFE, DON't YOU AGREE?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Alright, so I had fun writing Gaster, and I think he might be my favorite to write.
> 
> Also, More Dadster.  
> Yes.  
> Good.


	5. (It's a mailbox overflowing with unread junk mail.)

A letter was waiting for him on the doorstep when he woke up.

Sans stared at it for a long while before he picked it up and brought it inside, closing the door behind him and opening it. Greeted by the handwriting of Alphys, he shook his head and set it aside, going to prepare food of some kind for Papyrus.

The first day was spent entirely inside after that, letting his brother go off on his own to play with his friend.

 

The second day after the missing moments he couldn't remember, Sans woke up to another letter.

This one was from Alphys as well.

He balled it up and threw it into a corner of his room, turning to his desk to plan what he'd give Papyrus for Christmas.

Papyrus came home later than Sans liked, and he couldn't shake the feeling of panic about his brother being in the snow. There was a memory, vague and barely there, of him being on the ground and being vulnerable.

He hugged him tightly and carried him up to bed when he fell asleep standing upright.

 

Day three, he didn't even bother reading the letter.

He threw it in the corner with the other one, thinking for a moment before throwing the first one in too. His eyes glowed as he stared at the three papers, his hand clenched tightly on the wood of his desk.

His finger bones left scars in the wood and he told himself that he was just adjusting to having bad dreams.

 

On the fourth day, he ventured outside and shoved the letter that was waiting for him into the mailbox.

 

On the fifth day, he followed Papyrus out and about, letting his brother lead him around the village. They built snow sculptures together before going back home, exhausted, their clothes soaking wet.

On the sixth day, the new letter was in the mailbox.

 

On the seventh day, he didn't bother checking.'

Or any day after that.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
 **(It's a mailbox overflowing with unread junk mail.)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Sans makes me sad. Maybe I'm just reading too much into the clues we're given, but Sans makes me so sad.


	6. Worry About The Ones You Love

"Sans?"

Papyrus watched his brother, drawing away from the attack he had been preparing, a look of worry twisting around his eye sockets. "Sans, why do you call them what you do?"

"Heh," Sans shrugged, sticking his hands firmly into his pockets and looking up at one of his attacks, watching it lean to look down at him as well. "Don't know, bro. Why do you ask?" he grinned, his smile weary at the edges. "Nothin' special 'bout the name, s'just what I decided to call them."

Putting his own attack away, Papyrus frowned. 

"No, really, it's nothing special." Sans insisted, his hands twisting the fabric of his jacket. "It's just what I called them- I didn't choose it for any reason, and I never-" he stopped, midsentence, then sighed. "I'm headed to Grillby's."

He walked off, pulling up his hood against the small snowstorm that started as he went. The empty eye sockets of his attacks continued to stare after him, a small whine issuing from one of them. "He'll be alright," Papyrus soothed it, holding out a hand. "I promise I'll keep him safe."

When it nudged into his hand, he smiled. "Gaster Blasters. Nyeh." he rubbed a hand along it's nose. "Maybe one day, he'll tell me the real reason for naming you that.

"I just worry about him." Papyrus confided in them, sighing as he pulled together all of his stuff, heading for their house. "Ever since he stopped going to the main city every day, it's like he doesn't know what to do. I worry about him, so much." he rearranged his load, smiling at them as they surrounded him, following along until he got back home. 

Inside, he set his things down, sighing once more as he headed back out, towards Grillby's. "I guess I'll just bring him home again, let him sleep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus makes me happy, and I have theories I wish to explore. 
> 
> Also, short chapter because I'm clearing my head and trying to get back into writing a lot of things I let slide for months now.


	7. DON'T FORGET

"You didn't have to bring me home again, Papyrus. I can find my way in the snow without a guide."

"You don't act like it sometimes." Papyrus chided, ushering him through the door. "And sometimes I worry that you'll get lost in a snowdrift and then I'll never find you again. The thing is, Sans-" he cut himself off, shaking his head.

Sans grinned up at him, a hollowness in his eye sockets that wasn't usually there. "Hey, who's the big brother here again?" he headed for the stairs, walking past the poster on the wall. "No bones about it, thought it was me."

"Sans!" Papyrus play-shrieked at the half-assed pun, his hands curled at his sides. 

With a small salute, Sans entered his room, pressing against the door once it was closed behind him. "Damn it, Pap, did you have to bring it up today?" he breathed heavily, his bones rattling as he looked around. 

One corner of his room was taken up by a cyclone of garbage and crumpled letters. 

After a moment of thought, he lunged for a piece of paper he saw sitting on the ground, yanking a pen towards himself and scribbling frantically. "Don't forget," he muttered, pressing down harder and harder, the lines getting darker with every pass of the pen. "Can't forget, don't forget, I won't forget," his entire body shook as he sketched in Papyrus's face, the lines of his teeth, his own shape and form.

The third person...

He paused for a moment, his hand shaking as he held the pen above the paper. "Don't forget." he hissed, scraping his other hand down his skull, pulling his glasses off before he tossed them into the cyclone. They stayed near the edge for a moment, a reminder of something he didn't want to know, and then they were gone.

"Don't forget!" he snarled, forcing his hand back to the paper.

After a moment of hesitation, he filled in the third shape, dark clothing and a white lab coat on top. "Can't forget, dad, don't forget- Gaster- Dad- No!"

The pen broke in his hand, and he threw it into the vortex with a growl, clutching the drawing to his chest. "Dad..." his voice was barely there, a whisper of sound in the quiet of his room. Around him, heatless flames grew, as if shielding him from some unknown threat. It felt familiar, and he drew in a deep breath, forcing himself to his feet.

A blink, a moment of ignoring the rules of the world, and he was in the shed beside their house, dutifully ignoring the sheet covered object in the corner. "I won't forget." he said quietly, opening a drawer and laying the drawing inside. "But it has to mean something, you have to still be there."

He closed the drawer slowly, watching the drawn faces of his family disappear into the shadows.

"Alright, dad?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I really like making sad Sans, don't I?
> 
> Well, hope you liked this bit. It's the immediate follow-up to chapter six.


	8. Don't Be Alarmed

Every dream is the same.

A moment of calm, the seconds before a storm hits, the sort of storm you just know is going to wreck absolutely everything. 

When things move again, he's flying through the air, uncontrolled until something shoves him away and then he's calling out for someone, someone who isn't there anymore and then the world lands again but everything is out of place. 

Waking up feels like plunging face-first into a pool of ice-water, everything frigid and miserable until he can make his eyes open.

Staring at the ceiling, Sans clutched at the blanket he had pulled over himself the night before, his hands rattling from how tight he held the fabric.

When he first woke up, the air was chilled, even more than usual. It was expected, living in Snowdin, but to have his breath visible for a second before it immediately heated up to something bearable, that was different. A chair pulled up next to his bed, a book abandoned on the seat of it, that was also different.

Sans sat up slowly, looking around the small space he slept in. 

It didn't look like Papyrus had been in. His brother seemed to have an unquellable urge to tidy up a space when he was there, like some sort of compulsion when he was faced with clutter and mess. Nothing was out of place besides the chair and the book, and he recognized it after a second. Normally, it lived on his bookshelf, the dusty spine of it facing out towards the rest of the world.

That was...Weird.

Downstairs, he could hear Papyrus moving around. Despite his unhappiness over his brother staying asleep for as long as possible, he never tried to wake Sans up before it was absolutely necessary. 

Grabbing the book as he pulled his jacket on, Sans shuffled into his shoes and headed down the stairs, puzzling over it as he walked. "Hey, Pap?"

Didn't hurt to ask.

"Yes, brother?" came the taller skeleton's voice from the kitchen. "Is something wrong?"

"Did you, uh," he chuckled, turning the corner and holding up the book. "Did you come into my room while I was sleeping?"

Papyrus paused in what he was doing, looking over his shoulder and spotting the book in his hand. "No," he shook his head, negating it twice, firmly. "I stopped at your door to see if you were awake, but I heard you still sleeping, so I let you stay that way. And while we're talking about that, you napped for thirteen hours again! When are you going to get your schedule back on track, Sans?"

"Eh, it'll fix itself bro." Sans shrugged, settling into a chair at the table. 

For a moment, he studied the table, then looked back towards where his room was. One of the chairs that matched the table was missing, leaving three of the four behind. Shrugging again, he lifted a hand and pulled the fourth back downstairs without getting up, his hand and eye glowing blue.

Making a noise somewhere between frustration and fondness, Papyrus sighed. "Do you have to do that? You could have just gone back up to get it from where ever it was!"

"Nah, s'it's easier to do it this way." Sans looked between the book and the chair, feeling like there was something he was missing. 

"...Sans?" Papyrus asked quietly, sitting in the chair next to him, his hands wringing together almost nervously. "Why was there a chair up in your room? That is where it was, right?" he gestured at the book. "Was that with it?"

Sans nodded slowly, making a face. "Yeah."

"When I got up this morning," Papyrus's jaw wiggled like he was thinking about how to phrase his sentence. "I had- There was the same thing in my room. The fluffy bunny book was sitting out, and I thought, well, Sans has gone to bed before me, but maybe he woke up and needed some comfort from reading it in my presence. You've done that before, when thunder and lightning came into the underground from above. Since I woke up first, I just put the book and chair away, didn't even think about it until you said something."

"Huh," Sans held the book out. "It's a physics book. Fluffy Bunny and physics, weird combi-" he cut off, his sockets going wide. "...!" his breath caught as he stood up, racing for the stairs.

For a moment, between Papyrus's and his bedroom doors, there was a third one. 

It was grey, flickering in and out of view, and he approached it carefully, afraid to move towards it, touch it, even breathe on it for the possibility that it might disappear under his attention. "Dad?" he whispered, one hand curled into a scared ball at his side as he moved even closer. "Dad?!?"

As Papyrus came racing up the stairs, it gave a sharp jolt and vanished from sight.

"Sans!" his brother's voice was almost as scared as he felt, the feelings of a lost child dragging at him. "Sans, is everything alright? Why did you just go running off like that?"

The world around him was settled again, the flicker in the timeline gone before he could even really make sense of it. "...Nothin', bro, I'm fine." he turned to look at Papyrus. "Let's go to work, right? Should be about time to be on the lookout near the ruins." he stepped around his brother, dropping the book to the floor and ignoring Papyrus's demands that he at least set it inside his room before wandering away.

At least he had someone he could joke with in just a little while, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite being part of the Void, Gaster still reads his kids bedtime stories.


	9. Let Me Sleep In Peace

The hallway felt oddly chilled as the door at the end of it opened slowly, the small form of Frisk wandering in from the world beyond.

Sans's shoulders tensed up as he watched them approach, their feet making quiet little shuffling sounds on the floor with every step. There was something different about them, some little quirk in their personality as they turned their eyes towards him. For a moment, he saw- thought he saw -a flash of red in them, an entirely different person looking back at him from behind their eyes. He could feel the anger building in them, a battle being fought and slowly lost (Slowly won by something else within the same body) and he grinned even wider.

He could feel the power of the Reset building up, and he knew he only had a little bit of time.

"Hey, Kid." Sans grinned at the human in front of him, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets. "You've been doin' so well about not killin' anyone this time. You sure you wanna reset?" he jerked his chin at Frisk's hand, the other clutching and pulling at the wrist. "Or maybe it's not Frisk who wants to reset..."

Their eyes turned to meet Sans's, a faint glimmer of red flashing through them. 

"...Is it, Chara?"

The kid looked up at him, teeth bared in an angry grimace as they studied his face, hands empty of even the most basic of weapons. Frisk had been getting rid of them as they'd found them this time, picking them up and then setting them back down again.

He had to admit, he was kind of impressed. 

Chara looked furious as he shrugged. "Doesn't really make a difference to me if you reset or not. I go back to the ruins, Frisk gets another shot at controlling their own body, y'know, the one you keep trying to steal from them. Guess it's just lucky I don't have the _guts_ to stop ya, right?" he gave a grim chuckle. "Toriel and I don't get to meet in this timeline, I don't _goat_ to see her face when she smiles...Well, I take it back, maybe I do have the guts to stop ya. You left her alive, after all."

Dark brown eyes flickered through the constant red, and Sans almost wished that Hope didn't hurt so much. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, he could feel his Hope increasing as he stared down the murderous child. From what he knew, Chara's soul had split into two parts: One part had gone towards a murderous weed, and the other part had been wrapped tightly into Frisk's soul, threatening to destroy the kid and causing the resets when Chara's influence became too much.

The tiny speck of good left in that kid hadn't been enough, had never been enough, to keep Flowey (Asriel, the Queen's only blood-related child...) from going on his murderous rampage. His own soul was corrupted, angry and afraid, from his death, and had kept just enough of the human's determination to hold together in the barest form it could. The only reason Alphys had been successful with her experiments with DT and the flowers from the King's garden was because she had used a base of an already existing soul.

"If you wanna have a bad time, keep thinking about resetting, kiddo." Sans warned, his eyesocket lighting up in an icy blue. "I can promise ya, nothin' good'll come out of trying to overtake Frisk here."

He could almost hear the pulse-pound of a battle, long ago and far from won. Something inside of him felt strange, and he fought the urge to put a hand to his chest. The scar across his bones, the one the kid put there every time they fought, seemed to almost itch. No matter where he was in a reset, it was always there, like it came from the 'Before' that he could never remember. He had nightmares of fighting, of his magic being whipped around so quickly that it gave him nausea, but those were fleeting thoughts, images he could never quite keep when he woke up. 

"You..." came the venomous hiss from Frisk's lips, Chara pulling at the strings to guide what was quickly becoming little more than a puppet. 

The kid looked ready to kill him again. 

"Hey, chill out kiddo, you ain't got a weapon this time." Sans's eyesocket was still glowing. "You didn't kill Pap, you didn't kill anyone. You can still go on through and talk to the king and get everything sorted out with him, y'know? _Ice_ to know you've still got options open, right?"

"SHUT UP!" came the angry screech.

"Nah, don't think I'm gonna. You know how we skeletons are, our teeth just _chatter_ when we're nervous." Sans's grin grew again. "You went back and talked to Alphys, you know what's in the lower levels of her lab. You know-" he stopped, took a short breath. "You know what happened down there." he pointed a hand to the door behind them, scoffing. "You went back and talked to her. You didn't kill her, you didn't kill anyone you came across."

"You IDIOT," came a new voice from behind him. "Do you REALLY think that you can talk your way out of this?"

Sans shifted to look, his good humor still in place when he spotted Flowey. "Shouldn't you be seeding weeds into someone's garden?" he asked. "And no, don't really think I can talk my way out of this. But..." he chuckled. "Every other time, you take our souls as part of you. We all gather in one little room and you snag them for your own powers." 

A root shot out of the ground, twisting around him. "And you POINT IS?" Flowey shrieked. 

"We're not all in your little room," Sans shrugged, kicking his feet gently as he dangled. "And the timeline's about to change in a really new sort of way." he turned to look at Frisk's body, Chara's eyes flashing through theirs. "Because that kid is just so Determined, it's almost scary. Frisk didn't kill anyone this time, Chara's influence didn't take _root_."

Small balls of flame gathered around Frisk. 

"Tori's did."

They shot out in all directions, swerving quickly around Sans as he dropped slowly to the ground, the electric blue of his own magic cushioning his fall. "Hey Flowey," he laughed. "Bit of a riddle for you. What happens when the only living descendant of one of the magic users who sealed the barrier falls through it centuries later, only to be delayed just enough by a psychotic child ghost that them falling through it completely unlocks it?" he watched as one of the fireballs hit Flowey, detaching him from his root system. "And what happens when that descendant is also a magic user, if an untrained one?"

He teleported across the room to the kid, putting a hand on one of their shoulders. "C'mon kid, you can do this, you got this one." he kneeled down, his bones clattering against the floor. "I believe in you." his magic surrounded his hand, feeding into the red that was winning out over the darkness of Chara. 

"SANS!" came a loud cry over the indignant shriek of the flower, Papyrus's boots thudding against the floor as he came running, followed closely by Undyne and Alphys, the small scientist tucked under the guard's arm for safety and easier travelling. Her other hand held a spear, and she looked ready to fuck someone up. "SANS, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"

A flailing root almost swiped his head off, but his magic glowed a brilliant orange around him before it could, shielding him from the damage. 

Undyne handed Alphys off to him, spinning gracefully on her heel and swinging her spear, neatly slicing the tip of the root off the rest of it. "Oh no you don't!" she growled, dropping into a defensive position in front of the taller skeleton. "I don't know what's goin' on here, but I know it can't be any good!" she bared her sharp teeth at Flowey. "And I know I can't let you get your grubby leaves on any of my friends!"

"C'mon kiddo," Sans whispered, trying to help Frisk sit up. "See? All your friends are here, you can make it through this..."

Frisk groaned, their entire body shaking as their eyes opened.

Red flared out around their hand, their fingers curling against the tile of the floor, nails scraping it almost painfully before one hand came up and yanked the locket they wore off of their neck. It went hurtling across the room, smacking Flowey in the face, and when it settled, it looked as if it were around someone else's neck. 

For the first time in ages, Chara looked through their own eyes, just as angry as ever. 

The two humans stared each other down, Frisk's shoulders shaking from their output of power, their entire body unwilling to do anything else for the moment. Chara's body was shivering, a similar state to Frisk's, but they were also grinning madly, spots of pink high on their cheeks as their eyes seemed to almost turn a liquid red.

At their side, Flowey shrunk down until he was almost retreating through the crack he had made in the floor. "Oh no..." he whispered, his features shifting until he had Asriel's eyes. "You made Chara angry..."

Turning to face the flower, Chara wrapped a tight fist around Flowey's stem, threatening to rip him in two. 

Their demented smile never left their face.

"Let go of him." Frisk said softly, their voice little more than a whisper. They reached out a hand, a weak red glow surrounding it, and watched with wide eyes as Flowey was pulled out of the floor and towards them, a flowerpot forming around his roots. "You don't get to hurt him."

"Give him back, I get to do what I want with him." Chara insisted, getting to their feet. "You're just an empty body, useful for the moment."

"You're the one who made the fighting happen." Frisk answered instead, cradling Flowey's container to their chest, petting gently at the now-closed petals surrounding Flowey's face. "You started an entire war."

"And you're the one going off script." Chara accused. 

Frisk stepped back, handing the flowerpot to Alphys, watching as she scrambled to hold it securely from her place in Papyrus's hold before they let go of it entirely. "This isn't supposed to have a script." They said it calmly, but their hands were clenched and their knees were shaking. "Nothing is supposed to happen enough times to have a script!"

They threw a hand out when Chara made a move like they were going to run towards them, stopping the other human in their tracks. "You need to let me go, Frisk, this world needs to die, Frisk!" Chara squirmed. "LET ME GO, FRISK!"

"It isn't that Flowey doesn't have a soul," Frisk said quietly, addressing the entire room. "It's that his soul was being barricaded in by the emptiness of Chara's."

"LET ME GO!"

Frisk shook their head. "If I let you go," their voice dropped even quieter than before, quavering with a quiet sort of fear. "You'll just hurt everyone again. It's time for you to rest, Chara. Your body, your original body, is gone, and it has been for a very long time. There's nothing for you here anymore, you're just...Supposed to sleep, now."

As they spoke, a soft glow of red surrounded Chara, seeming the leech from their eyes until they were staring around the room with warm hazel ones instead of the terrifying nightmarish ones from before. "...Can you say goodbye to them for me?" they asked quietly, their struggling going still as they looked over their shoulder. "Mom and d-dad, I mean." they folded onto their knees when Frisk allowed them to go loose, not making any moves to get away. 

Sans watched, feeling the power swirling around Frisk as he held his brother back, one arm across his knees, his other hand curled tightly in the fabric of Undyne's shirt so she couldn't run forward.

"I will," Frisk reassured Chara, stepping close enough to pet at their hair. For a moment, two children remained in sight, and then one of them faded away, leaving a heart shaped soul in Frisk's hands. "Don't worry, Chara." they watched as Chara's soul, a dark, muddy, red-brown color, turned into a mist instead of shredding into nothingness.

The room seemed to tilt on it's axis as Frisk stood back up, blinking rapidly as their feet wobbled underneath them. 

"...You okay, Frisk?" Undyne called out, her face confused. 

They nodded, fingers moving in a few signs of assurance of safety that Sans knew she wouldn't understand. "That for us, kiddo?" he stretched his own hand out when Frisk's eyes rolled back in their head and they dropped to the ground, Sans's magic the only thing saving them from cracking their head open.

He stepped forward, reminded of all the times he'd ever carried Papyrus when they were smaller, and pulled Frisk into his arms, settling them carefully against a shoulder. 

That was were Toriel found the group of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hello Chara.
> 
> Hopefully, if you're reading this, you've realized I am posting things out of order. It is somewhat to emulate the style of the game, with the timelines twisting about and rearranging, but it's also because I feel it tells the story better. Frisk and Chara are...Interesting. They're opposites in my view, one wanting to destroy and the other wanting to save, even as they both work for the same end goal of opening the barrier and freeing everyone.
> 
> Of course, this means that there's at least once where Chara was able to reset the timeline so far back that they started the war in the first place. They were locked in by the humans because the humans thought they had killed a human child, but Chara hatched the plan to free the entire race before they died in the first place? Entirety of the timeline had to have been reset for that to happen.
> 
> Also: Yeah, Flowey is terrified of Chara. The timeline altering starts breaking down the walls of the memories at some point, so you end up with Flowey who remembers the betrayal and then his death at their hands. Technically twice.
> 
> ...Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Tell me what you thought?


	10. Little Brother Clever Man

He'd known for ages that something wasn't right with his brother.

Sans was always a little more reserved than him, he knows that for sure, knows it despite the difference in what he remembers and what he dreams. There's moments when the turn of his neck, the curve of his spine, even the fall of his feet on the ground, doesn't ring true. Something is missing, and he doesn't know what it is.

He put on a brave face for the world, for Sans who always seemed different, always seemed the same, ran up stairs without a reason only to pause at the wall and stare blankly at nothing for several minutes.

Papyrus knew something was...Off about his brother, a certain missing element. 

A flower told him how to succeed, how to become a guard, took him over, caused his death again and again and again, but he still tried to make certain that good things happened for the creature. There was something special about him, after all, even if Papyrus couldn't figure out what it was. It was in the way he talked, the way he sometimes looked sad even when he thought he was getting what he wanted. He told Sans about talking to the flower, but he never said anything about much else; Flowey was his secret, even when that secret led to fear.

Sans had practically raised him, bolstered the flame of his soul until nothing could dampen it down. What worried him was the fading-ember light of his brother's soul, his magic as strong and sure as ever, but dwindling amounts of Hope causing a clench in his own soul. 

It had taken him a while to figure out the pranks-across-time-and-space thing.

He had to admit, it was pretty funny. 

The human was a dilemma, facing them again and again creating different outcomes and timelines. Frisk and then someone else and then Frisk again...It made Papyrus's head spin a little. He knew that he could get through to them if given the chance, could get the human to look at him with the right eyes and give up the violence they were indulging in.

But this...

"Look at that!" crooned the flower, roots curling tightly around Papyrus's arm. "The little brother goes pop!" The bones of his arm snapped, leaving him to shout in pain as the pieces were turned into dust on the ground. 

Papyrus's eyes dimmed, a faint orange glow coming up around his remaining hand. Beyond the flower, he could see the human, a look of fear on their face. Their hand was pressed against the chest, a mimic of Papyrus's injury.

Their other hand was held in the air, and he knew what was coming.

They hadn't chosen to fight this time.

Behind them stood a dark shadow, the child that occasionally took their place. Papyrus groaned, trying to untangle himself from the vines wrapped tightly around him. "Human!" he greeted them, trying to smile. "I do not want to scare you, but you might not want to be here right now!"

A squeak of fear escaped from them, their outstretched hand twitching like they were signing a denial. 

"Oh, you think you can save them?" came Flowey's voice. A new vine wrapped around him, dragging him back. "You're WRONG!"

"PAPYRUS!"

From off to the left, Sans came running, skidding to a halt as a vine wrapped around Papyrus's head. It squeezed tightly, and Papyrus groaned again, hearing the crackle of his skull. Looking between the two brothers, Frisk's eyes were wider than usual and they clenched their hand tightly, a burst of magic coming from their fingers. 

"DON'T YOU DARE RESET, FRISK, DON'T YO-"

 

Upstairs, Papyrus could hear Sans shifting in his sleep, and he smiled. 

The chairs this morning had been weird, one of them in his bedroom and another still missing, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from making a good start to a day for his brother. Something nagged at him, some faint echo of something missing, someone who was supposed to be there but wasn't.

Papyrus shrugged, moving around the kitchen. 

Today was going to be a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus seems to be a lot more in-the-know than he pretends to be.


	11. Never Thought It Would Be This

If his life were a movie, it'd be an action movie, where things seemed bleak up until the very moment when everything went right and the heroes triumphed.

At least, Papyrus thought as he watched his brother step out into the bright light of the sun, that's what it seemed like now. In the middle of everything that happened, it had seemed like a horror movie, or maybe a drama. He'd have to talk to Alphys later, see what she thought about it. It was definitely some kind of sad movie, that was for sure. Timelines bouncing right and left around an anomaly that had turned out to be an insane ghost of the King's adopted child.

Ghosts were alright, provided they hadn't gone insane and unstable.

And his brother was going to be fine.

Sans stood in the sunlight, his face turned towards the sky, his hands out like he was reaching to take something, and Papyrus smiled. He'd never told his brother, but he'd remembered everything.

There had just been the assumption that he was ignorant of the timeline shifts, and he'd let that stay. There were moments he couldn't help himself, the opportunity too good to let it pass without comment, but he'd let everyone assume that he didn't know.

He'd kept the physics books in his room for more than one reason, after all.

Papyrus turned to look back into the mountain, at the darkness that had held them for so long. Off to one side stood three boulders, and he frowned at them for a second, then turned again.

Frisk had grabbed his hand.

"Yes, human?"

They smiled at him, dark eyes meeting his sockets as if asking a silent question. "Is everything okay?" they managed to ask, fighting against their own mind for the words to come out. 

"Everything is fine, human." Papyrus knelt down and grinned, patting gently at their hair. "So this is the human world, right? Are you going to show us some neat stuff? Is there ice cream up here?" he paused, then gasped. "Is there spaghetti?!?"

Frisk laughed, tiny shoulders shaking as the grinned.

"Hey, bro, I think you broke the human." Sans grinned at them, his eyes almost gleaming in the light. "And yeah, I think there's spaghetti here. S'gotta be, what society would develop without pasta?" his grinned turned sly. "It'd be an-"

"SANS DO NOT-"

" _IMPASTABILITY_!"

Papyrus groaned, burying his face in both of his gloved hands, a quiet laughter that he'd deny later making his body shake and shudder. Beside him, Frisk just laughed harder, their small hands clutching at their ribs.

"Frisk?" came Toriel's voice.

Papyrus unburied his face long enough to watch his brother's face glow slightly, the blue of his magic adding warmth to him. 

"Yeah?" Frisk asked through their laughter. 

"...This may be an odd question, and I understand if you do not want to answer me right now, but it's about where you will live after this. Do you have parents that will worry about you? We should return you to them, if you do." Toriel frowned, her fingers clenched around the pot Flowey sat in, his leaves twitching as he looked between the Queen and Frisk. 

Shaking their head, Frisk frowned, their laughter leaving them. "I don't-" they shook their head again. "I don't have anywhere to go. I want to stay with you."

"My child, that is good to hear." Toriel kneeled down next to them, handing off Flowey when they reached for him. "Will both of you be staying?" she addressed the flower, petting gently at the back of the bloom that was his head. She smiled when Flowey whipped his head around to look at her. "Yes, I am willing to have you around." she pet him again, a careful fingerpad running across the backs of his petals. "But you must behave."

Flowey nodded, leaning into her hand. "I'll be good." he said quietly.

"Good." She hugged both of them close, pressing her snout into Frisk's hair. "Is there anyone we need to ask permission for you?"

"...I should probably tell the ladies that I got a mom." They said softly. 

Sans watched them carefully, a mixture of decades of caution and a growing sense of realization. "Hey, Pap." he whispered, motioning his brother over. "Kid's an orphan, I think." he frowned, watching Toriel continue to speak with Frisk. "Ain't that familiar."

"We have to keep them now!" Papyrus insisted, looking briefly over at where Asgore stood with Alphys and Undyne. 

"Yeah," Sans looked back at the human, doing his best to avoid looking at Toriel, his cheeks flushing blue again. "We do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D'awwwwww  
> Papyrus is smarter than you think, and he's not nearly as naive. Boy is just hopeful and willing to see the best in everyone.
> 
> This section is over, and the next update will be more of the world after breaking down the barrier.

**Author's Note:**

> I am posting this before I lose my nerve, but I would like it known that I won't be updating for a while. I have other things to update first, things that haven't been updated in about eight months or so.
> 
> Also: I would appreciate it, if you are going to send me messages about plot holes and nothing making sense, if you would at least let me post a few more chapters before that. I...  
> Truthfully, I once got so upset with a message like that...I gave up on a story I was so excited about. It just made me feel so...Gross about my story that I stopped posting it. It was a message on the second chapter of what I had planned as a forty chapter fic.  
> I don't care if you hate this.  
> Just...Please don't send me messages like that until you've had more of a reason to hate it.


End file.
